The online portal for claiming your job retention grant in respect of furloughed workers is expected to be available from April 20th. At the time of writing, we still do not know where this portal will be or what information will be required. There is also considerable doubt over whether we, as agents, will be able to make these claims on your behalf and do also be mindful that we may not have the resource to submit the claims to a timescale that is acceptable to you.
Running payroll has to remain our priority. Remember this is a two-part process – for you to claim the grant you have to pay the staff and for you to pay the staff we have to run your payroll.
Ensure that you will be able to make the claim yourself
So our advice is to ensure that you will be able to make the claim yourself using your online PAYE login. Some of you will have this service already set up as part of your business’s HMRC portal on the government gateway. Some of you may have it as a separate login and many of you will not have a login at all.
You need a ‘PAYE Online’ login
If you already have a government gateway login for your business but without PAYE as a service (so, for example, you have a VAT login), then log on to your business HMRC services and select the option to enrol for ‘PAYE for Employers’ under ‘Services you can add’ and enter your scheme references. These can be found on any P30 Employer payslip that we issue to you each month.
If you do not have any government gateway login for the business then go to https://www.gov.uk/paye-online/enrol and scroll down to ‘Enrol for PAYE Online’, and follow the instructions.
If you have a login but do not know either the username or the password or both, you will need to call HMRC on 0300 200 3600 to reset your login details. The phone lines are open 8am to 8pm, so try early or late if you don’t want to spend an age on the phone.
Please note that it may take up to ten days for you to receive the activation code. The activation code will be issued in the post to your business address so please make sure that the business is an accessible location for you.
Stay tuned
And to reiterate – we don’t have access to this and we cannot do it for you. All our payroll submissions are made through our agent gateway, not your individual ones. We are hopeful that there may be some development on this but we just don’t know. The latest guidance states that most payroll bureaus will not have access.
Keep your eye on our email footers, our website and on twitter @payacademy for updates. We are working as hard as we can to keep abreast of developments but we need you to help you too.
Many thanks for reading and actioning. Stay well.
